Well, I started a thread back in August (http://forums.joeuser.com/411269/) that's seen a lot of activity and actually had quite a few good bits of information for new and old players alike. I figure it's time to start a new thread and perhaps keep the OP up-to-date with useful information, etc. Feel free to use this post for any LoL discussion, etc.

Super fast background: I played a lot of Demigod as pacov/cheesuscrust. Back in August 2011 or so, I started getting heavily involved in LoL and folks have been kind enough to chime in with tips and links to various sites that have been quite useful to me. In addition, I've been able to keep up with folks that I've played Demigod with in the past and meet some new folks that play LoL and frequent these message boards.

Here's some of the things I've learned in the previous thread:

For anyone that is level 30 with an account in good standing, you can participate in the tribunal. This is a system that was setup by riot to allow the community to police their own. Check it out here: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/Tribunal

Consider picking up the starter bundle. It's 530 RP (that's about $4). You get 8 champs unlocked, a 4 win IP boost and a 10 win XP boost. It's a pretty good deal (used it recently on an alt account). You can find it in the game store under bundles.

Riot gives you 400 RP as soon as you hit level 5. It's enough to buy some skins, a boost, or a cheap character.

Learn to last hit! Last hitting is simply landing the last hit on creeps. If you last hit, you get gold for that kill. The number of creeps you have killed is tracked in a value called CS. You can see this number in the top right hand corner of the ui or by pressing tab. Here's a really simple tutorial re: last hitting if you are brand new - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LheiRB76x5g

Read some guides on any character you want to try out. The recommended builds (what you see when you go to a shop) are not optimal. The guides include item suggestions and skill orders. These are very useful in learning decent ways to build characters

Use the rune combiner to get level 3 runes prior to level 20 if you like. You will need 375 IP. Buy any tier 1 rune that costs 15 IP. You need to purchase 25 of these. Click on your rune page. In the bottom right hand corner there is a button called the Rune Combiner. If you place 5 runes in there, you can get a random rune that is 1 tier higher (eg if you have 5 tier 1 runes, you will get 1 random tier 2 rune. Anyway, the math works out such that you spend 375 IP ( buy 25 tier 1 15 IP runes) and you get 1 completely random tier 3 rune. Some of the quintessences are 2k IP, so if you luck out and get one of those, you just won the lottery. You can always keep the random tier 2 rune if you end up with something good and don't want to trade it out yet.

Consider setting aside IP for tier 3 runes (available at level 20 and above). You can't purchase them with real money - only IP. Keep that in mind.

k - so I'm just going to put down some of my thoughts. I'm not amazing at this game, but I do certain things that improve my odds of winning in ranked and so far its panning out just fine (bronze 5 to gold 5 in about a month or so). We all have varied skill levels, so some of this might be useful and some not. Caveat complete.

Prerequisite- you need to know how to play every single role. You don't have to be a god at every single role (more power to you if you are - I'm certainly not). You need to be able to play at a serviceable level in every single role and excel at least at 1 role (preferably 2). In my case, I'm good at support and adc. I'm not great, but have serviceable mids and jungles and so so tops. Knowing what you are good at and bad at is very important. If you don't know, I can probably tell you - but you really should know... Anyway, you need to have enough champs to make solid picks in any role and you need to be able to cover any role if it comes down to it. I'll talk about how to get better at specific roles in a bit.

Champ select advice - Don't be the "fill" guy unless you really feel like you are awesome in all roles. Call your preferred role immediately when you hit the lobby. Say "adc pref." Do this as soon as you hit the lobby. Some people believe that if you call a role you magically get it. This is stupid, but if you call something out, folks will often accomodate your request. If you are feeling wishy washy for whatever reason, call out multiple roles in order of what you want to play - "adc/mid pref." In my experience, you generally do not want to call support. It's a very important role, but you want to be in a position to carry every single game if possible. If you aren't calling out a role, you are hoping that other players can carry you. If you are hoping that folks will carry you, you don't deserve to win. You need to know your best roles and you absolutely should request them.

Solo or duo in ranked? - Well, my 1st thought here is that you should solo. If you solo, you have to rely on yourself. IMO - its a much bigger test of skill to play solo and win than to duo. Do you want someone to carry you or do you really want to know that you are actually good? That said, provided you have the right duo partner, you can increase your odds of winning quite a bit. The simple math is that instead of having 4 teammates as unknown quantities, you only have 3. If you have a good duo teammate, you know what you can expect. When you duo, you get the most bang for your buck by having complimentary roles. Support/adc is good; jungle/mid also works. Even if you don't have direct symmetry in roles, if you are an amazing mid and I'm an amazing adc, our odds go up quite a bit if we both get those roles. Our odds go way down if we can't get those roles and are forced to play out of positions that we are weaker. For example, Bryff is a good mid. If he duo's up with me, the only way he will get to play that role is for me to call mid, take it myself, and then put myself into a position like support where I can't carry out of (I'm always 1st pick, Bryff is always last pick when we duo)... that and I have to show the mid I'm picking at the start which means Bryff gets hard countered. In short, we can expect that we will be a disadvantage when duo queuing. Now, if Bryff queued up with someone at a lower elo than himself that was solid, he'd likely be 1st pick and be able to get mid and have a better chance of carrying the game. Anyway, you need to keep in mind where you end up in pick order when duoing if you aren't looking to go adc/support. If you want that, you can usually get it.

How do you get better in roles that you are not good at?- Well, here's what I do. And this is really what I do on a regular basis. I think about what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. For instance, I realized that I don't play any hyper carry ads. So, I read up on hyper carries like vayne and kog maw. I look for guides on how to build them (most adcs are the same btw ), I look for vids on how people play them (eg how do I all in with a specific champ - is there a combo - when do I all in - what's the best way for me to burst - how should I behave in lane with this champ). Then, I fire up a custom game and try out the mechanics of whatever champ vs AI. Usually I learn a few tricks during that custom on how to position myself, etc. Then, I'm off to normal games where I'll request the role or character I'm trying out. Now, people still report your for being awful in normals, but it really is where you need to try out characters to see if you are any good or not as the bots are useless for proving your skill level to yourself. So, fire up that normal and ask to play a role (again - after you've tried out the champ against bots). If you don't know anyone you are with and you are quite awful, I suggest muting everyone at the start of the game. Then, do your best. Continue with this until you feel like you have a serviceable skill level in whatever role. And keep in mind what you need to work on. For me, I noticed I didn't really have alot of mids for ranked, so I started practicing some with gragas against and karth. That way, I'll be able to get the job done if I need to play mid. The next thing I need to do is put more time into being better top lane. Again, because while I prefer adc/support, I might need to play top for the team. So, best to be ready for it. Put your time in and practice roles.

One last thought - there are certain things you can generally expect in ranked. 1 - if you are 1st pick, you generally can call whatever you want. Common knowledge, I'm sure - but I'll add - CALL WHATEVER YOU WANT. 2 - if you duo queue, you generally can lock down both adc and support. It works best if your adc is 1st pick, ofc. I've bumped into like 10 random dedicated supports in all of my games of LoL. People generally aren't going to call support. So, if you are 1st pick and duo'd, just call adc and then your duo partner can almost always get support.

Lol King profiles for ranked tracking

I'm not going to update this regularly, so just consider it a snapshot (I'll add a date when I update them). Anyway, I enjoy seeing folks progress through ranked and keeping tabs on that sort of thing from time to time.

1) There are VASTLY reduced rewards for killing the same guy over and over if he doesn't get kills in between. If you kill him 10 times in a row, those last kills are going to net you like 50 gold apiece or something stupid like that.

2) Its extremely difficult to gank top when you are playing from bot. The only regular jungle spawns on that side are wolves, and they are still quite a ways from your lane. The jungler ganking top gives up quite a bit to go for that gank.

Or to put it another way, I got 8 of our teams 10 kills. The other jungler had 3 kills at the same time. Yet I was STILL behind on levels because I was top so much. I didn't get my first 5(!) reds because Shy was aggressively counter jungling and to be honest, I was top way too much as it was.

I can't consistently give away XP and gold to go for kills that are worth 100 gold if successful. The math just doesnt work out. Especially when other lanes are getting mauled in the process (Shy was sitting bottom, stealing my red, then ganking bottom a lot). If bot is struggling, its not really the best choices to abandon them and let them both feed to just get kills on somebody top who isn't worth much any more, especially since I have to abandon wraiths, red, and double golems to do it.

The other major factor is that I have to give up dragons to do this. This wasn't a big deal since they were bad, but in a real game with good players, if their jungler gets my red, ganks the bad bots successfully, then its a free dragon for them. I can't stop it any more. Plus I gave up half my jungle. Ugh.

Because of this, the basic rule is that top just can't expect many ganks. If he gets that many, the jungler gives up half their jungle to aggressive junglers, and risks giving up free dragons. Its much more viable for the jungler to gank mid and to gank bot, especially when playing from the bottom side when more of the jungle spawns are bot.

I was stupid, played another one. People that bitch all game because someone isn't using their favorite build are just so damned stupid...

I might be done with ranked, I like that people are more serious. I want to ****** when they spend the whole game being ass monkey's, and usually with no regard for the actual problem the team faces. Like an unbelievably bad jungle Xin that somehow went 0/7/2 despite getting invincibility whenever he tower dived to feed Vayne. Six deaths over 42 minutes while keeping that moron alive for most of his trips, all so I could have uninterrupted bitching about how terrible I was for only warding half the jungle.

The game ain't bad, if a little simple, but the player base is shit in a can.

I was stupid, played another one. People that bitch all game because someone isn't using their favorite build are just so damned stupid...

I might be done with ranked, I like that people are more serious. I want to ****** when they spend the whole game being ass monkey's, and usually with no regard for the actual problem the team faces. Like an unbelievably bad jungle Xin that somehow went 0/7/2 despite getting invincibility whenever he tower dived to feed Vayne. Six deaths over 42 minutes while keeping that moron alive for most of his trips, all so I could have uninterrupted bitching about how terrible I was for only warding half the jungle.

The game ain't bad, if a little simple, but the player base is shit in a can.

Edit: I should wash my mouth out with soap...

Use the ignore feature.

Also, don't try and keep feeders alive. Feeders are going to feed. But once they get beyond 5 deaths in a row they arent work much to the other team, so just let them die and dont go down with them.

First game she demanded top from 4th pick, went Riven v Nidalee, and super fed (0/9/0 at 20 minutes). Everybody else was winning, so we tried to keep playing since we were actually even on kills despite top. But Riven REALLY wanted to surrender to avoid getting more deaths (and looking worse in Tribunal when reported for feeding). When we refused to surrender, she just wnadered around map doing random things (1v1ing baron at level 12 etc). So she got 9x reports.

After taking that loss, I requeued...and got paired with her again. As soon as she saw me she announced that she was trolling and feeding. Well, she didn't feed, but she did troll hard core. And the only reason she didnt feed was because she spent 10 minutes at based because I "tried to help her". You see, she told me not to help her top, and when I went to gank, she left me to die, ran away, and sat in base saying it was my fault that she was trolling for 10 minutes.

Then I requeued and had her again. Things went basically the same way as the second game. It was fun.

Ignoring the assholes in ranked really isn't a good idea. Half of them are the idiots that feed and blame their lane partner, but the other half are the morons top and mid that jump on the bandwagon. When they don't suck, it's nice to see when they're saying something besides OMG YOU HAVEN'T WARDED! while I'm pinned under the tower watching my ineffectual carry do less damage than me as the jungler tries to steal red while I ping his impending doom traveling through the brush...

You know, like when they say fight beneath the tower five seconds before they dive the tank and get killed by the enemy carry.

Trolls are everywhere this weekend. Took down two 4v5's the day before with carries that knew their job, and all I got was tards yesterday and today.

Got back into playing jax tonight. Wow - talk about snow ball. Last game was a level 30 match. My team had silly team comp (yi/jax top, ziggs mid, and ahri/soraka bot). No jungle.

My bot refuses to swap 1 for so we have 2 melee top 2 ranged bot. Not a big deal in hindsight. Anyway, yi and I are vs garen top. We kill him and their suck jungler at about 2:40. We kill the top tower around 3:15. Was completely rediculous. Everyone on my team was competent expect my yi. Their team was just outright bad. Anyway, made me feel like a champ as jax. We just tore things up. Anyway, I actually like the revamped jax more than the original. Sure, the snowball effect is still there like before, but I like the 100% sure regular attack dodge he has not instead of the "maybe" dodge. I think it was a good change. Granted, LOTS of random dodge before wasn't exactly bad. So, super fun.

Canceled my SWTOR sub today. I have 20 days left - don't think I'll be using it, but who knows. I think I'm going to stop pissing around on my alt LoL account as well. I unlocked him tonight there and played a few to get up to speed. But the runes I have on my main account make a HUGE difference as jax. I'm currently running with move speed quints (instead of AD or AP quints). Move speed was the ONLY thing that hurt my build on my alt. Anyway, super fun.

Computer is still out of action Getting LoL withdrawal! Praying that the new hard drive I bought gets things going again...once it gets past customs.

Hope you are back in business soon!

I think I'm just going to completely abandon the jungle role altogether. I just don't find it fun and think there's way too much of a penalty now for any screw ups (and by that, I mean any missed ganks). Mayhaps I could adapt, but I just don't think its all that fun and would rather be dueling it out in a lane than running through the jungle.

Anyway, I'm going to keep working on my solo tops. I think I do great for ranged ad now at bot and great as support bot as well. I don't really have any issues with mid either.

You know what I'm still ABSOLUTE rot with? Items that have active's. I don't know what it is, but I am almost always a complete idiot when it comes to using them. I like, completely forget, 99% of the time, that I have an active. Doesn't matter what character, too. And there are ALOT of cool actives. Anyway, I'm hoping that clicks in my brain at some point. Kind of sad that it has not yet after so many games.

You know what I'm still ABSOLUTE rot with? Items that have active's. I don't know what it is, but I am almost always a complete idiot when it comes to using them. I like, completely forget, 99% of the time, that I have an active. Doesn't matter what character, too. And there are ALOT of cool actives. Anyway, I'm hoping that clicks in my brain at some point. Kind of sad that it has not yet after so many games.

Yeah, I'm pretty bad with actives too. You might notice that I buy Randuins a lot, but I forget to use the active so often.